kengr

Had a dream where ast one point I was apparently involved in some sort of quantum research as was taking a look at basic assumptions to see what might come of questioning or changing assumptions.

Only bit I recalled upon waking was declaring a new element.

Nullon (Nu)
Group 8 (noble gases)
Atomic number 0
Two isotopes, Nu-0 and Nu-1. Nu-1 has a half-life of 17 minutes.



Basically, it's adding an "element" to the beginning of the periodic table.

Nu-o has no protons (atomic number 0) and thus no electrons. and no nuetrons fopr an atomic eight of 0.
Nu-1 adds one neutron. Giving an atomic weight on 1. something. So it's a free neutron, hence the 17 minute half-life.



All perfect;y "legit" and by the rules. If you squint a bit. :-)

I've been thinking about trying my hand at programming again. It was the early nineties when I quit working in the field, so I pretty much missed object-oriented programming and Windows programming.

I've got minimal exposure to several assemblers and to C. I was good at several versions of BASIC, and Turbo Pascal. Also knew FORTRAN IV and RPG,

Anyway, I'd appreciate suggestions as to books and other resources for learning to program for Windows and Linux (I'm running kubuntu on one machine). Also have some interrest in writing code to run on my websites.

Catching up on unwatched TV programs and I'm watching the Doctor Who New Years special.

When the doorbell of Graham's apartment rings the Doctor asks "Who's intruder alert is that"?

The writers thought they were being funny, but actually that's a good description of a doorbell's function for those of us who are really introverted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GCSWEgZT94

Or rather Fay brought me Fire.

She got a new Kindle Fire and gave me her old one. It definitely works for reading my ebooks and saved HTML files. So-so for web browsing. I haven't checked music and video yet.

Touch screen is annoying at times. Doesn't like my fingers for selecting stuff. Gonna pick up a stylus and see if that helps.

*Definitely* need a bluetooth keyboard! Entering URLs is a pain with the on-screen keyboard.

Gotta get a case that'll hold it and the keyboard as well.

Also gotta see about a few apps. I have to dig into things to see how exactly to get LastPass and Xmarks to work on it. That'll save a *lot* of typing.

And it wants to use Overdrive to read the epub files on the micro-SD card. It *should* be trying to use the regular kindle reader for those. Oh well, I'll figure it out eventually.

After reading a post by ysabetwordsmith on disabilities in SF, I got to thinking.

First one I recalled was Arthur C. Clarke's "Islands in the Sky" with a legless guy on a space station (someone else with a better memory reminded me that he was the commander of the station).

That lead me to recall that the Commandant of the Patrol Academy in Robert Heinlein's "Space Cadet" was blind.

And now that I think more, there was Baslim the blind and crippled beggar in Heinlein's "Citizen of the Galaxy" (who turns out to be a lot more than you'd think).

Then I recalled Murray Leinster's "Space Platform" where a good chunk of the workers building (on the ground!) the first space station (they launched it in one piece!!!) were midgets/dwarfs because they could work in tight spaces.

at one point it's suggested they they launch a smaller setup crewed by some of them as a stopgap because they don't need as muchg space, air or food as regular sized people.

And these were all in the 50s!

Later came Anne McCaffery's "The Ship Who Sang". And a book whose author and title I forget whose main character was blinded (on purpose by some nasties) and used a prosthetic that let him see thru the eyes of nearby people or animals. He managed to take advantage of this to figure out what everyone had been trying to do for a long, long time and "map" hyperspace.

C.S. Freidman had a book where one of the cultures was built around almost all the people in it being neurodiveregent in one way or another. And being *designed* to accomdate them.

Anyone else have some stories to add? Fantasy stories are ok too.

I've been rewatching some old programs from my childhood.

Among them were Fireball XL5 and stingray. I decided to check out the other Gerry Anderson shows that hadn't shown in my area.

Thunderbirds was ok, though like all of the shows it suffered from *horrible* plot holes/ignorance. Stuff like ignoring the way military groups work, science and tech errors, and just plain criminal stupidity on the part of various people and groups.

But Captain scarlet takes the cake. In the first episode, we have first contact with aliens *horribly* botched. Basically, the human group mistook something for an attack and destroyed an alien base on Mars.The aliens were able to recreate it with no effort, but while they claimed to be pacificists, they swear revenge on Earth for the attack.

The rest of the series is Earth fighting off the attacks. But the only mention of the attack on the Mysterons is when *they* sometimes mention it while announcing their next attack.

And while the Mysteron reaction is arguably out of line, why does nobody ever go into the fact that humans started it (note, the same folks that fired on the Mysteron base are the "heroes" of the show, except for the one who has been "converted" to the Mysteron side).

I know it was a kids show, but even so, I'm *appalled* at the way they just *accept* the attack that started the whole thing.

Ok, today I got the NAS box I'd orderdd, along with the 4 TB drive that is going in it. (It's got room for a second, but that's *not* going to happen any time soon)

Setup was fairly simple, though at some point I have to configure users and groups. Right now I'm accessing it as admin, and it'll only allow admin to be logged on from one system at a time.

Among other things, it works as a DLNA server. After I started copying files over from the Windoze box I'd been using as a media server, I set up the DLNA server (well, I still need to add more directories as I get them copied over). It was fairly simple.

Then I tried to access it from the bluray player. Which didn't show it. I messed around with the settings. Still no show.

At the same time, I noticed that it showed Kalonia (the Windoze box I'd been using as a media server but couldn't access anything on it).

This has happened before. Something had caused Windoze Media Player to turn off media sharing (and "lose" a bunch of files and folders that were supposed to be shared when I turned it back on). So I assumed it was the same thing and told WMP to add the files again.

This stuff wasted a few hours as I was doing other things at the time.

Finally as I was beginning to wonder if somehow the new box was interfering with the old one. Then I glanced over at the kitchen table where the NAS box was. As well as the gigabit switch and the 10/100 switch I'd had to hook up because the gigabit switch was out of ports. And I saw the ethernet cable I'd unplugged from the gigabit switch to make room for the NAS box. Since it has gigabit ethernet, it needed to go on that switch. I remembered that the cable I'd unplugged was a one that was only doing 100 Mb ethernet. And then I realized that the color of the cable meant it was the one going to the bluray player. which only does 100 Mb wired.

Oh. I'd not plugged it into the 10/1000 switch. I plugged it in and suddenly both the NAS box (Tellus) and the windoze box (kalonia) were showing up ok on the bluray player.

Hence the title of the post. Duh. It works better if it's plugged in.

I frequently run into situations in online fiction (and even printed books) where the author has neglected to do some simple math, and has thus set up a situation that is embarrassingly stupid for anyone who has a feel for the numbers involved.

What got me think on this most recently was a story where someone had managed to get the better of some Russian Mafia bosses, and got their stashes of gold.

Ok, he got things right in moving the stashes from the chests they were in to a number of suitcasres, at about 40 pounds per suitcase.

What he got wrong was having the chests be "full" of gold bars and krugerrands. and yout only amount around 300lbs.

Gold has a density of 19.3. That means that a given volume of gold weighs 19.3 times what the same volume of water would weigh. So, that means 1 liter of gold weighs 19.3 kilograms. That's 42.55 pounds.

So this huge stash of gold only occupied about 7 liters. Even allowing for empty space between the coins and the gold bars, that's *still* a might small box, not several large chests.

Also, going with the value of gold, a couple years back (first per pound price I found with google). Gold was worth over $16,000 per pound. Using the exact figure from the quote, I about 61 and a third pounds of gold to make a million dollars.

I'll spare you the math, but that works out to less than 1.5 liters of gold.

From the info above, you can also get the idea that the proverbial "gold brick" (which in tales of greenhorns was usually an actual building brick painted gold) is going to weigh 40 or more pounds. If the guy trying to sell it to you is holding it in one hand and doesn't look like Arnold Scharzennegger, it's a fake. :-)

So, for writers, numbers matter. That huge fortune in gold (at least at current prices) is still going to weigh a lot, but isn't going to take up *nearly* the room you think it will. A footlocker full of gold is going to need heavy equipment to move.

Why? Because with really rough figures for the size, I get around 89 liters of volume. Which is around 1 and 3/4 metric tons.

I'll leave calculating the value as an exercise for the reader. :-)

Someone on one of fayanora's sites was griping about some tranny porn. I forget whether it was just low quality, unrealistic or exploitive.

Anyway, my mind immediately thought of a response. I had Fay type in some search terms and she quickly located this bit of "appropriate "tranny porn".

Worksafe & childsafe (in spite of all the naked parts on display), but *strong* drink warning.

http://j.mp/lFGvT4

( The keywords (please don't check without clicking the link first) )

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